ThriftyWanderer

I have just returned from a trip to Montana, and flew non-stop between LAX-BIL (Los Angeles to Billings, Montana), and back. Both flights, on MD-80s were sold out.

The outgoing flight to Billings (LAX-BIL) was delayed about 90 minutes, no big deal.

The return flight last night BIL-LAX (flight AAY 313 on 7/20/2015) took off about an hour late, then was diverted to Ontario (ONT) airport, due to fog and runway issues at LAX. I do not fault Allegiant Air for the flight diversion, nor for the late departure - these were due to LAX air traffic issues.

However, once we landed at Ontario Airport, we sat on the tarmac for nearly 3 hours. The captain and flight crew did not have any ground support at the Ontario airport, no gate, no fuel, no plan of action. To make matters more confusing, the captain and crew periodically announced that we would re-fuel and fly to LAX, then, the story would change to "we will deplane in Ontario". Back and forth between these two possible scenarios, and they even denied saying we would de-plane in Ontario. Several passengers recorded the conflicting announcements.

When we were finally allowed to exit the MD-80 plane, it was down the tail stairs, walking across the tarmac to the terminal stairs. The Pilot first announced that all checked luggage would remain on the plane, then, after half of the passengers had deplaned, the pilot announce that the checked luggage would be sent out to baggage claim. The crew also told us that no ground transport to LAX would be provided, we were to figure that out ourselves, or call "Allegiant Air Customer Service".

Delta and Alaska Agents were in the terminal, and very informative and helpful, even though we were not their passengers. In fact, the Alaska Agent got in contact with Allegiant in Las Vegas, and arranged for bus transportation to LAX for the stranded Allegiant passengers, and our Allegiant Pilot even offered to use his personal credit card to pay for the buses.

Many thanks to the Alaska Agent who went the extra mile, and probably won-over many new Alaska Air customers! Thanks to her, two large motor-coaches arrived for our trip to LAX.

My sympathies to the Allegiant Pilot and Crew members, who obviously are doing the best they can under the circumstances.

In summary, my first, and likely last experience with Allegiant Air gave me little confidence in their customer service. The employees are not empowered to solve problems, and have no corporate support system in place to help their customers in the event of an emergency diversion.

In the future, I will likely pay more money to avoid flying with Allegiant. Sure, I saved $100 on Allegiant's cheap airfare, but that savings comes with the heavy price of poor customer support.